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So, the recent news that scientists have found evidence for an abundance of life in a lake trapped more than two miles below a glacier is both exciting and awe-inspiring. In a nutshell, scientists analyzed ice cores taken from an area where the glacier meets the lake—Lake Vostok, Antarctica's largest subglacial lake—and found 3,500 unique genetic fragments in their core samples. More than 90 percent of the genetic material comes from a wide range of different bacteria. This is a biological bonanza: a lake frozen over now, but once open to the sky and surrounded by a forest 35 million years ago. Here are the details on the findings, published in PLoS ONE.

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have, for the first time, determined the true colour of a planet orbiting another star. If seen up close this planet, known as HD 189733b, would be a deep azure blue, reminiscent of Earth’s colour as seen from space.

But that's where the similarities end. This "deep blue dot" is a huge gas giant orbiting very close to its host star. The planet's atmosphere is scorching with a temperature of over 1000 degrees Celsius, and it rains glass, sideways, in howling 7000 kilometre-per-hour winds [1].

At a distance of 63 light-years from us, this turbulent alien world is one of the nearest exoplanets to Earth that can be seen crossing the face of its star. It has been intensively studied by Hubble and other telescopes, and its atmosphere has been found to be dramatically changeable and exotic, with hazes and violent flares (heic0720, heic1209). Now, this planet is the subject of an important first: the first measurement of an exoplanet's visible colour.

It's not just Pluto that's getting new moons. The same spacecraft—in fact, the same scientist—that discovered two new moons orbiting Pluto has now spotted a new satellite around Neptune, boosting its total retinue of known moons to 14

July 16, 2013 — ETH researchers are able to make objects such as particles and liquid droplets fly in mid-air by letting them ride on acoustic waves. For the first time, they have been able to also control the movement of objects, merge droplets, letting them react chemically or biologically and even rotate a toothpick in the air.

A toothpick floating in mid-air without any support -- this may sound like it involves hidden threads, magnets or other sleight-of-hand tricks from magicians. But the actual trick used by Daniele Foresti, former doctoral student now a postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratory of Thermodynamics in Emerging Technologies, is based on acoustic waves. Despite the appearance of "magic," he and his colleagues realized and controlled the planar movement of floating objects in air, regardless of their properties, involving no sorcery but science. This is not simply an amusing trick: moving objects such as particles or droplets of a liquid freely in mid-air makes it possible to investigate processes while avoiding any disruptive contact with a surface. For instance, some chemical reactions and biological processes are compromised by surfaces, and certain substances disintegrate on contact with a surface.

Riding a stationary wave

Until now, scientists have been able to generate such a "contact-free" levitational state only with the help of magnets, electrical fields or in liquids with the help of buoyancy. These methods, however, limit the selection of materials that can be handled. "It is extremely difficult to levitate and precisely move a drop of liquid with a magnet. The fluid has to possess magnetic properties. In liquids, where buoyancy force supports levitation, you can only use immiscible liquids such as a drop of oil in water," explains Dimos Poulikakos, Professor of Thermodynamics and head of the research project.

With acoustic waves, in contrast, it is possible to levitate various objects regardless of their properties. The limiting factor is the maximum diameter of the object, which must correspond to half the wavelength of the acoustic wave being used. An object reaches the stationary levitated state when all the forces acting on it are in equilibrium. In other words, the force of gravity that pulls the object in one direction is counteracted by an equally large force in the opposite direction. This force comes from the acoustic wave, which the researchers generate as a standing wave between an emitter and a reflector that reverberates the acoustic waves. The force of the acoustic wave pushes against the object and thus prevents it from falling due to gravity. It is conceptually similar to the air jet from a fan that keeps a ping-pong ball in the air.

Borrowing a trick from nature, researchers have switched off the extra chromosome that causes Down syndrome in cells taken from patients with the condition.

Though not a cure, the technique, reported July 17 in Nature, has already produced insights into the disorder. In the long run it might even make the flaw that causes Down syndrome correctible through gene therapy.

“Gene therapy is now on the horizon,” says Elizabeth Fisher, a molecular geneticist at University College London. “But that horizon is very far away.”

Down syndrome, also called trisomy 21, occurs when people inherit three copies of chromosome 21 instead of the usual two. It is the most common chromosomal condition, affecting around one in every 700 babies born in the United States. People with the disorder typically have both physical and cognitive complications of having an extra chromosome.

July 17, 2013 — A team led by William Fenical at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has discovered a new chemical compound from an ocean microbe in a preliminary research finding that could one day set the stage for new treatments for anthrax and other ailments such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

"The real importance of this work is the fact that anthracimycin has a new and unique chemical structure," said Fenical, who added that the finding is a basic research discovery, which could lead to testing and development, and eventually a drug. "The discovery of truly new antibiotic compounds is quite rare. This discovery adds to many previous discoveries that show that marine bacteria are genetically and chemically unique."

How long would you be willing to wait for a drop of the black stuff in Dublin? After 69 years, one of the longest-running laboratory investigations in the world has finally captured the fall of a drop of tar pitch on camera for the first time. A similar, better-known and older experiment in Australia missed filming its latest drop in 2000 because the camera was offline at the time.

The Dublin pitch-drop experiment was set up in 1944 at Trinity College Dublin to demonstrate the high viscosity or low fluidity of pitch — also known as bitumen or asphalt — a material that appears to be solid at room temperature, but is in fact flowing, albeit extremely slowly.

It is a younger and less well-known sibling of an experiment that has been running since 1927 at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, which Guinness World Records lists as the world’s longest-running laboratory experiment (see: Long-term research: Slow science). Physicist Thomas Parnell set it up because he wanted to illustrate that everyday materials can exhibit surprising properties. In the past 86 years that experiment has yielded eight drops, with the ninth drop now almost fully formed and about to fall.

"Why are you pointing your screwdrivers like that? They're scientific instruments, not water pistols.""Oh, the pointing again! They're screwdrivers! What are you going to do? Assemble a cabinet at them?""Are you capable of speaking without flapping your hands about?"""Timey" what? "Timey wimey"?"

IvCNuB4 wrote:The Old Doctor is Cat-Scratch ?Well that explains a lot :lol:

July 22, 2013 — The resistance to insulin seen in type 2 diabetics is caused partly by the lack of a protein that has not previously been associated with diabetes. This breakthrough could potentially help to prevent diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes accounts for 90 % of cases of diabetes around the world, afflicting 2.5 million Canadians and costing over 15 billion dollars a year in Canada. It is a severe health condition which makes body cells incapable of taking up and using sugar. Dr. Alexey Pshezhetsky of the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Center, affiliated with the University of Montreal, has discovered that the resistance to insulin seen in type 2 diabetics is caused partly by the lack of a protein that has not previously been associated with diabetes. This breakthrough could potentially help to prevent diabetes.

"We discovered that Neu1, a protein nicknamed after "neuraminidase 1," turns the absorption of sugar "on" or "off" in body cells, by regulating the amount of sialic acid on the surface of cells," Dr. Pshezhetsky explains.

"We are now trying to find a way to restore Neu1 levels and function in diabetes. If we can remove sialic acid residues from the cell surface, this will force the insulin receptor do its job of absorbing blood sugar properly. This could give doctors an opportunity to reduce the use of insulin therapy, and might help to reduce the diabetes epidemic, says Dr. Pshezhetsky.

The results of his study done on cells and mice were published this month in the journal Diabetes. Dr Pshezhetsky and his team are now testing their results in diabetic patients.

[url-http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/23/science/faster-than-the-speed-of-light.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0]Faster Than the Speed of Light?[/url]

He and other NASA engineers have been designing and redesigning these instruments, with the goal of using them to slightly warp the trajectory of a photon, changing the distance it travels in a certain area, and then observing the change with a device called an interferometer. So sensitive is their measuring equipment that it was picking up myriad earthly vibrations, including people walking nearby. So they recently moved into this lab, which floats atop a system of underground pneumatic piers, freeing it from seismic disturbances.

"Why are you pointing your screwdrivers like that? They're scientific instruments, not water pistols.""Oh, the pointing again! They're screwdrivers! What are you going to do? Assemble a cabinet at them?""Are you capable of speaking without flapping your hands about?"""Timey" what? "Timey wimey"?"

IvCNuB4 wrote:The Old Doctor is Cat-Scratch ?Well that explains a lot :lol:

You can't see gravity, right? It's just an invisible, natural force of attraction, created by mass, yeah? Well, almost—but in this image you can see its effects in still and breathtaking glory.

The ripples in the clouds of this images are known as gravity waves. NASA explains exactly what they are

Rest at the link.

"Why are you pointing your screwdrivers like that? They're scientific instruments, not water pistols.""Oh, the pointing again! They're screwdrivers! What are you going to do? Assemble a cabinet at them?""Are you capable of speaking without flapping your hands about?"""Timey" what? "Timey wimey"?"

IvCNuB4 wrote:The Old Doctor is Cat-Scratch ?Well that explains a lot :lol: